NEV. JUDGE DISMISSES ELECTION CHALLENGE
Finds president’s campaign failed to prove fraud claims
A Nevada judge dismissed President Donald Trump’s campaign’s formal challenge to the state’s election results with prejudice on Friday, ruling that the campaign failed to substantiate its claims of voter fraud or offer any basis for annulling more than 1.3 million votes cast in the state’s presidential race.
In a detailed, 35-page decision, Judge James Russell of the Nevada District Court in Carson City vetted each claim made by the Trump campaign and found that none was supported by convincing proof. Lawyers for Trump are expected to appeal Russell’s decision to the Nevada Supreme Court as part of their foundering effort to overturn Biden’s victory in key battleground states.
The campaign “did not prove under any standard of proof that illegal votes were cast and counted, or legal votes were not counted at all, due to voter fraud, nor in an amount equal to or greater than” Biden’s margin of victory, which was about 33,600 votes, Russell wrote.
The decision represented the latest blow to the
Trump campaign’s hopes of using the courts to change the result of the presidential election in the last month. That effort — which has involved dozens of lawsuits in six states — has so far been a failure, as lawyers for Trump and his allies repeatedly failed to present credible evidence of wrongdoing that would justify invalidating millions of votes in swing states.
The campaign launched its formal challenge in Nevada late last month, even as the seven judges of the state high cour t off icially accepted the election results and Gov. Steve Sisolak, a Democrat, issued certif icates of election. Judges had already rejected multi
ple lawsuits filed by Republicans using similar claims.
During a court hearing Thursday afternoon, Trump campaign lawyer Jesse R. Binnall said the Nevada election had been “stolen” from Trump and claimed a “robust body of evidence” supported his conclusion.
Among its claims, the campaign alleged that more than 61,000 people voted twice or from out-of-state. In his ruling, Russell concurred with election officials and academic experts that there is no evidence for this.
The judge specifically dismissed witness declarations that had been touted by the campaign, calling them “self-ser ving statements of little or no evidentiary value.”
He added that the campaign’s so-called expert testimony “was of little to no value” and that he “gave it very little weight.”
One of the Trump campaign’s claims was that people outside a Biden van filled out blank ballots and then put them in envelopes. Russell said the claim of ballot-stuffing in broad daylight — made by one anonymous person and not corroborated by anyone else — was “not credible.”
The Trump campaign faced other legal defeats around the country on Friday — including in Minnesota, where the state’s highest court dismissed a Republican lawsuit seeking to delay certification of the election results. Biden beat Trump there by more than 233,012 votes.
The campaign pressed forward, however, filing a new lawsuit in Georgia state court seeking to invalidate that state’s results based on unsubstantiated claims of voter fraud and wrongdoing by election workers.
In a statement, campaign lead counsel Ray Smith III called on the court to “order a new statewide election for president” or allow legislators to appoint the state’s presidential electors.